Burn My Heart To Ash
by RikaDivani
Summary: The family is broken up by a surprise attack and April must turn to her younger sister for help. Will she help when all her memories of April are so unfavorable? Raphael x OC Right now I'm focusing on character development and action, rather than romance. Rated for violence, graphic depictions of gore, and possible scenes later on that I'm just gonna be safe with now.
1. Violent Happenings

BMHTA

I fell off my bed in a tangle of sheets, yelping in surprise when a car horn honked loudly outside my home. I shook my head and tried to get up, but the honk came again, startled me, and I smacked my head on the side of the dresser.

I lurched to my feet, head swimming, trying to stabilize myself. '_What the hell?'_

Another round of honks had me pushing off the dresser, tangling my feet in the sheet, tripping- and then cussing out every deity I could think of and every inert surface in the house just to be safe. I got up with one leg still tangled, violently jerking my leg free and skittering out of the room, almost falling down the stairs.

The honking got more insistent as I stumbled down the steps with a death-grip on the hand-rail. '_I am punching whoever that is, right in the face._' I wibble-wobble on my feet, bumping off the edge of the kitchen table and turning around a corner to look out the window next to the front door.

The honking finally stops and-'_April!? What the actual fuck!_'- my sister turns to push the doorbell button. I pull the door open as the bell sounds.

My expression is flat, and she flinches back when she sees the look in my eyes. "Kinda late for courtesy. I already brained myself on the dresser and almost concussed myself getting downstairs."

She grimaced at me, spread her hands in a 'sorry' kind of gesture. "Casey is kind of impatient to get off the street. Um. Can you open the garage?"

Her hands are clenched shut; sweaty and trembling.

"I'll open the garage if you can swear to me there aren't any drugs, or other illegal items or persons in that van. And if there are, April-" I put a finger up in threat.

"No, no!" She put her arms up defensively, "It's not like that. I swear us being here is not illegal in any way, shape, or form!"

Her expression was conciliatory, her body language practically begging me to let her in. Her and whoever the hell the guy was, '_What was his name? Fuck, who cares._'

"Fine. The button's over there." I step aside so she can follow my pointing finger. I watch her dash for the garage button like it's a lifeboat and become even more suspicious than before. The guy drives into the garage I converted from the old barn and I follow April out into it. Rubbing my eyes and shaking my head to wake myself up.

"April, I want an explanation for this." If she tries to wave me off with any weak crap about it just being an impromptu visit, I'll smack her right in the mouth. "I think I deserve one."

I whip my head around to glare at the guy getting out of the front seat. He cringes back inside with a grimace and shuts the door. 'Damn straight.'

"May, I'm sorry. I just needed a place to hide for a while. I didn't do anything bad, but the people who are after us, well..." She grasped my shoulder and I knew this was going to be bad. Even with all the odds against April getting kidnapped or murdered or singled out for a fuckin' drug ring to use her as a mule- Her luck and stupidity would couple together and raise the chances because it was April. "What is it? Do they want your kidneys or some stupid shit like that?"

She looked nervous and swallowed. "Not mine. But I'm sure they'd be happy to take them... I'm here for my... friends." She turns and opens the doors to the van.

"Friends? April-" The first thought I had when she said 'friends' was that she'd fallen in with the wrong crowd. Grown woman or not, April was still probably as dumb and unlucky as ever.

Then I saw them step down out of the back and it was like I was hit by a truck. _'What? Genetic experiments? They don't look like the mutants from Chernobyl. Maybe aliens? Either way, is it the government that's after them? April can't hide from the U.S. Government on a farm!' _

"April...?" I couldn't even hear myself, it was more of an anxious gasp. April wrapped an arm around me and kept me upright.

"These are my friends: Michelangelo, and Raphael." They each raised a hand as she spoke their names and then dropped them, looking depressed and disinterested respectively.

I can't really remember whether I fainted or just wobbled on my feet a lot, but there's a blank spot in my memory and suddenly I'm in the kitchen with April pouring me some chamomile tea. I jolted and tried to reconcile the memory skip, but just found a hazy wobble to the kitchen with April saying something to me. It's mostly in words, you know those memories where you know what happened but you can't see it?

"April. Did I just see, what I think I saw?"

"Depends: What do you think you saw?" She sits down next to me at the table.

I show her exactly how amused I am with my facial expression, which is to say, NOT AT ALL. "Fuck you."

"I'm sorry May, I've had kind of a bad day. Can't we be civil to each other for a few minutes?" There were dark circles around her eyes and she was still kind of shaking, though it'd gotten better now that we were inside.

"It's six in the morning, you honk at me until I nearly kill myself, I stumble down to let you and the guy with the van in, and get the shock of a lifetime and you won't even explain without being a smart-ass?" I speak quickly and let a whiplash into my tone.

April makes a face like she wants to argue but sighs and sinks into the table. "I'm sorry, okay? My friends-..." She took a choked off breath, "... My _family_ in New York is broken up and some of them might be dead, or all of them..." She starts to hiccup and sob, her body shaking with it.

I get up and walk over to the sink to wet a couple washcloths. I put one on the back of her neck and tap her face with one until she leans up and I can put it over her eyes. She leans back over with it and just sobs to her hearts content as I rub the washcloth on her neck. _'I need a cigarette. Or alcohol. Which one will April bitch about less?'_

Eventually I trudge upstairs and get my electronic cigarette. It was just flavored vapor, as April had hounded me to quit a long while ago, but who gives a fuck?

I walk back down with it clenched in between my lips. Downstairs, I made another cup of tea and set it in front of April. _'Oh what the hell, I'll just make breakfast__, it's not like I'm going back to bed anytime soon.__'_

I reached up in the cabinet for my pancake mix but couldn't quite reach, as it's up top and I didn't use it much so I'd never gotten around to moving it. I huff and walk over to the stool, dragging it over to step up and grab before falling back down to my other foot on the floor. '_I'm so lazy I just left it up there when I could've just done that. I need to get a horse or cow or something, I'm going too soft. Maybe some chickens.'_

I pour the mix into a bowl as April calms herself, sipping her tea and dabbing her face with the washrag.

"May?"

I grunt.

"I couldn't tell you before. Well no, I didn't want to. I met some people a while back who weren't... Really people."

I throw her a glance over my shoulder to prompt her to go on.

"Splinter and the four turtles, you just saw two of them... Were mutated."

_'Obviously.'_ I open the fridge and grab eggs and milk. '_Get to the point.'_

"Splinter was a pet rat to a ninja master, and somehow when the mutagen started to, well...mutate him, it burned the memory of his master training into his mind. He said it was the only constant he had in his life from Japan to here."

I stir the milk in to the pancake mix with a white knuckled grip on the whisk.

She clears her throat, "He has a photographic memory now, as a by-product. Anyway, he started to train, and when the baby turtles grew a little, he trained them too."

_'If I hadn't just seen them for myself I'd be calling bullshit.'_

"They became ninjas, and eventually Splinter let them go above ground." She tapped her coffee cup of tea with her nails. "They became vigilantes, they're really good guys. They saved people from the Japanese Foot Clan, Shredder moved them over here from Japan to kill Splinter's 'owner'. And eventually they defeated him and dismantled his empire. The crime rate went up for a while but when it was clear they wouldn't tolerate it, it halved its original amount." She takes a deep breath and swallows hard.

"They spend every night except Monday and Wednesday out on the streets, stopping rapes and kidnappings and murders." She bit her lip when I glanced back at her again, my hand automatically cracking the egg lightly against the bowl. "But last night the Foot Clan found the lair."

_'Sounds more like a villain HQ than a hero vigilante home but what the hell do I know?'_

"They took Splinter and Leo, and Donnie hit an emergency flush in one of the tunnels so that Mikey and Raph would leave without him. Mikey had to knock Raph out to get him to calm down long enough to call me."

_'Why didn't he just go with them?'_I turn on the stove while I stir the last few remaining chunks of powder into goo. "And he flushed them down whatever tunnel because?"

"Donnie had to stay behind and set a false trail, open up their escape and delete all the data on his computer hard drives remotely." She sighs, "Basically he did a lot of work after sending them off, but it had to be done or they'd have everything the turtles had. Now they have safe houses that aren't compromised with resources inside that could be useful to rescue them all. But..." She dipped her head. "They're all so self-sacrificial for each other and innocent bystanders... I think it's just a knee-jerk reaction now."

_'Never thought the 'wrong crowd' would be a bunch of heroes who__'d__ teach April to value her life less than the innocent. How do you even fucking argue with that?'_ I grab my waffle-maker and a bag of brown sugar, pouring in the batter after mixing some of the brown sandy-stuff in. _'I don't think you can without looking like a bitch, but I'm willing to give it a shot.'_ I put a pan on the stove and get back in the fridge for some bacon.

The silence is almost deafening, the slight ring in the air irritating my eardrums. I tap my fingertips on the counter-top in a flowing rhythm.

"Don't you have questions?"

I stare down the waffle-maker like it had all the answers.

"Anything?"

_'What does she want me to say!? I'm sorry these... Mutant people who aren't people__ - w__ho you just called your famil__y - ar__e missing and probably dead? What do you say in this situation? Even if I w__ere__n't socially retarded this would be hard to figure out!'_

"Nope."

I open the waffle-maker and shut it again when I see it hasn't warmed up enough to cook yet. "I need to take in and adjust, so just shut up for a minute."

She looks put off and I can't even blame her this time._ 'Even if she IS being a whiny bitch, she's... She's apparently got reason to.' _It was hard to swallow that sentiment and not just spew angry word-vomit in her general direction.

I kept opening and pouring and flipping waffles out onto a plate until I had a sizable stack and had to get more mix and plates. I cooked an entire heap of bacon, and a plate full of eggs in sunny-side-up, and scrambled fashion. It was something to do while my brain worked. _'So my sister knows mutants who are also vigilantes, got close enough to consider them family, and now they've been kidnapped.'_

SCRIBOPHILE POST END

I had tried to teach April to be a better person our whole lives. I was the younger sister, but she was the wild child.

She partied in the city whenever she could sneak out with her friends- smoked weed and drank like a lush. She had a pregnancy scare and stopped doing the wild bull-shit, but it didn't stop her selfish personality. I'd tried to get her to consider other people as people and not just _things_ for her to use but I didn't have much of an effect and even when one of her friends had committed suicide it was like it didn't concern her at all.

She eventually moved to the city and when mom and dad died I took over the farmhouse without a single peep from her.

'_And now all of a sudden she gives a shit.'_ As much as I'd wished for this and felt the warmth of affection creeping up my throat, I hate that it took something so extreme to snap her out of it.

'_I gave up on her, thought she was a lost cause... And THEN she was just fine?'_

"You're a bitch." I mutter to myself. I don't know if I'm talking to myself or to her, but both are accurate.

"What?" Her irritated tone gets to me.

"I said, you're a bitch!" I spun around, "I spent years trying to help you become... this-!" I gesture angrily at her. "A normal functioning member of society and instead, the moment I give up and let it go, thinking you're some kind of sociopath, you go off and find another _family_-"

She flinches at the venom in my voice.

"- and I'll be damned if they didn't get you to be exactly who I always wanted you to be." I slam the frying pan into the sink and she jumps at the loud clang. "So what was it, April? Did your pretty, skinny, red-headed ass feel like it'd found kindred spirits? People who throw themselves head-first into danger- Huh? Is that what you needed?" I jabbed my finger in her face, taking a puff of my cigarette and blowing out the smoke as I accused her. "Like you didn't have that here? Like I didn't spend every weekend fishing your ass out of some kind of dangerous situation- not because you needed to but because you _wanted_ to!"

"I'M SORRY!" I go still and glare at her as she heaves with her breath. "I'm sorry I was a crappy sister, and a crappy daughter, and I'm sorry I left you alone after mom and pop died. I'm sorry I became a better person for someone who needed me that wasn't you!"

"Don't pull that shit with me! You know damn well that's not what this is about." I step forward, staring her down, we're nearly the same height. "If you were gonna have a sudden turnaround why couldn't it be here? Why is it that you suddenly care about people?"

"Because they're not people and they still care." A pin dropping right now would sound like an explosion to me.

We stare into each others' eyes for a long time before she speaks again. "Because they had no reason to care, they owed nothing to humans, and humans consistently screw them over... But they cared. They saved people, they didn't hold their ignorance against them." She turned and pressed her hand to the tabletop, her other hand rubbing her forehead. "My whole life I was in this frame of mind that other people wanted things from me and if they got them, they wouldn't need or want me anymore. The guys weren't like that."

She sighs and cracks her back as I watch her. "You were younger and I didn't count you in all the calculations because you were my sister and you were supposed to annoy me. After I met the guys, and they kept giving and giving and never asked me for anything in return unless they HAD to... I realized that not everybody was like that. A majority, but not all of them."

She bites her lip, "And I was one of them. I took and took until the people around me had nothing left to give and then I left and didn't look back. I didn't realize that I was screwing people over, I thought they were using me too. My family using me for chores and other small, stupid stuff. My friends for popularity and my boyfriends... Well I don't have to tell you what they wanted."

'_Easiest thing to understand that she's said so far_.'

"So I started small, and I changed, in small ways. The guys and Splinter became my family, I fell in love with Casey who just wanted to love me." She drops her head into her hands. "And I'm asking you to help me, when I didn't even think of coming back to you. I didn't apologize, or try to make amends. And I'm sorry. But I- I couldn't do it, May. I couldn't ask you to forgive me, and I couldn't put any stress on you anymore."

Her eyes brimmed with tears. "You'd moved on and I wasn't- r-ruining your life anymore-" She was sobbing again, her ragged breathing ripping at my insides in a way that shouldn't be possible after all the shit she put me through.

April was years older in body, but years younger in maturity. Her entire being existed just for herself and her own needs when she was younger. Now she suddenly turned over a new leaf and sincerely asked for help that she needed, not for her, but for someone else.

'_Where am I, the twilight zone?__'_

April took a while to cry it out and eventually slumped, exhausted, onto the table. "So what do they need, exactly?"

She looked up and gestured at the house. "Asylum?" Her voice cracked a bit.

"Hiding, fine. If I end up dead because of this, I'm haunting your ass." She blinked at my deadpan expression and leapt on me like I was about to be hit by a speeding bullet. She hugged me tightly and gasped for breath, sobbing into my neck as I sighed and put a hand on her back.

"Thank you!" She whimpered into my throat and squeezed me.

"I can tell you still don't get it, April." She pulled back to rub her eyes and gave me a confused look. "I never helped you because I wanted you to be less irritating. I did what I did because I'm your family and that's what you do. If these people-who-aren't-people were able to do what I couldn't, then I owe them. If they really are like your family, that makes them _my_ family. But I AM gonna bitch your ass out a lot. Resentment doesn't just fuckin' go away."

She nodded furiously and squeezed my arms, her hands curled around them in a death-grip. "I understand."

"I don't wanna talk to you for a while, go find a corner, sit down and stay out of my sight." She abruptly turned and walked out of the room, heading for the garage where her 'family' was probably still hiding.

I counted how long that conversation lasted by looking at the clock and deducting the time it would have taken for me to get downstairs and to the kitchen table. We had talked for a lot longer than we ever used to. Even counting the time when I locked her in her room with her windows nailed shut to keep her from going to a drug party.

'_Fuck. I need a drink, who gives a shit if she throws a hissy-fit about baiting an alcoholic.__'_ I checked myself. _'_S_he probably doesn't bitch as much anymore.__'_

I usually drank peppermint Schnapps and always tried to stop when I got tipsy. I wanted to feel good and floaty and warm, not stupid and lumbering and depressed. So I grabbed my bottle and walked upstairs to my attic-room that I used to share with April and stepped out onto the roof.

I went still and jerked my head to the left when I detected movement. Apparently the two turtles liked to be on the roof, cause they were sittin' there, watching me like a pair of exhausted zombie-people.

When I sat down and looked away from them, they seemed to relax and sat back on their hands, staring out toward the city.

I turned the opposite direction so I couldn't see them from the corner of my eye anymore and uncorked my drink. The pop echoed in the night and I took a sip as I leaned back and lie down.

I sat up every once in a while to take a drink, lying back down after swallowing and glaring at the heavens like they'd personally wronged me. In a way, they kinda had.

Eventually I found myself lolling my head over to look at the turtle-guys on the barn roof. The one on the right was being held by the one on the left. He was curled up in a ball under the other one's arm and seemed to be shaking a little.

The bigger one looked older, more together, but I thought fuzzily in my tipsy-drunk mind that maybe he wanted a drink too. So I corked the bottle with the glass topper and stood up shakily on my feet.

There's a railing up here for this kind of situation. Mom converted all this into a widow's walk so April and I could star-gaze at night. April didn't care about the stars and I was more concerned with just getting the hell away from her.

I walked over and leaned on the rock-steady railing, shaking the bottle. The bigger one went even more still if it's possible and turned to shoot me a tired look over his shoulder. I was holding it out, sloshing it just a bit. He glanced at the turtle under his arm and stood up, lowering him to the rooftop and covering him with a blanket I now see was covering both their laps. He walked to the edge of the barn roof and I confusedly stared at the gap when he jumped clean across the small hallway my Dad had built to connect the two buildings and landed on the other side of the railing.

He was still a good foot away from me, but stepped up closer and grabbed the bottle with confidence. He'd obviously drank before, ripping open the stopper and sniffing the contents before taking a long gulp. If you didn't smell anything, it usually meant it was strong and would burn on the way down. He sighs like a great weight is lifting off his shoulders,

"Peppermint." He hopped over my rail, to my great surprise and sat down with his back -er-shell- against it. He kept the bottle close to his face and took long, deep breaths.

"Hello." I pull my e-cig out of my pocket and twist it on, inhaling a long drought of mist.

"You quit?" Gravelly, hoarse, slightly accented.

"April made me." He heh'd like this is something he'd expect from her. I realize he probably thinks it's because it was bad for my health, when in actuality she just hated the smell of the things. Even after she left I didn't start up with real cigarettes again. I could tell him, tell her whole 'family' what she used to be like. But since she changed _for_ them, they probably already knew. And if they didn't... Who was I to fuck with their whole unit?

"I was kind of out of it when she told me your name." I left it open and obvious that I'd forgotten.

"Raphael." He took another drink, sighing in satisfaction. "I haven't had anythin' this good in a while. April doesn't buy us any and Casey likes beer that tastes watered down and..." He shakes his head, "Hell it just tastes like somebody pissed beer into a bottle."

I snorted and almost sucked the cig down my throat.

A large hand settled between my shoulder blades as I coughed and he rubbed in soothing circles until the fit subsided.

We didn't talk much after that. He seemed to need to pass out, so he just kept drinking. Whatever. The guy had half his family stolen away and they were probably dead, he could drink a little tonight.

'_Even turtles like to drink away their problems I guess.__'_

I glanced over at him, catching sight of his eyes and realizing for the first time that he's wearing things.

A red mask is covering his face, contrasting with his green skin and light yellow catlike eyes. A leather belt is wrapped around his waist, right on his hips, maybe a bit above them. There are... I know what those are. I squint at the pair of shiny tridents hooked into his belt. I didn't know what they were called, but I saw a lot of them in Japanese movies.

'_April said they were ninjas_.'

"Sai."

"Hm?" I glanced up and caught sight of his eyes.

He tapped the handle of one of them. "They're called Sai."

Ahhh, the accent is Brooklyn. I can place it now. "They're a hand to hand and throwin' weapon." He went back to staring soundlessly into the bottle, inhaling the scent of peppermint like it was fresh air for some reason.

After a while I stumbled back into my window and onto my bed, curled up and almost fell asleep before I remembered and leaned out, snapping to get his attention. "There's blankets and pillows in the hall closets, my mom stocked up on them for winter. The room on the ground floor is my parents old room, and there's a sofa that pulls out into a bed. Stop sleeping on rooftops and in the damn barn. Tell April and the dude with the hair too."

"Aye aye." His lips quirked up at one edge in a smirk and he sarcastically saluted me. I flipped him off and heard him laugh as I lied back down.

'_Maybe this will all go away when I wake up?__'_ I glance at the window as a rush of air and light thump echo outside. An image of April flashing in my mind.

'_Do I want it to?__'_


	2. Waking Up and Breaking Out

BMHTA Ch 2

Schnapps are always good for a long nap, but getting up is probably a good idea. I glance at the window, leaning out to see if there's any evidence of what I remember of this morning. The bottle of Schnapps is half-full and sitting on the widow's walk right under the sill. I pick it up and set it back inside my room. _So it__'__s not going away then. Fine, I__'__m adaptable. _Which is another way of saying I let shit happen and deal with it all later. Might not be all that healthy but it keeps me from screaming, _**WHAT!?**_ At the top of my lungs for everyone to hear.

I glance over at the clock on my bedside table and sigh. 11 a.m. I know I wasn't drunk off my ass and I only slept as long as I did because I woke up three hours earlier than usual, but knowing that my internal clock was working without deviation even when everything else was going crazy? It was even more irritating than the feeling of not wanting to get up, coupled with the want to get up because I smelled coffee. Eventually my need for coffee won out and I traipsed downstairs to find April and the guy in the van sitting at the table with mugs full of coffee on the table in front of them. April glanced in my direction, but I walked straight for the coffee maker and ignored her. _So instead of waiting on someone else to make coffee and bitching that nobody is yet, she makes her own coffee now. That__'__s new._ She was smart enough to keep from talking to me before I'd gotten any liquid brown ambrosia, however her friend with blue-black boy-band hair, was not. "Uh, hey. May, right?" I grunted noncommittally and poured my own mug of coffee. "Ah... Thanks for havin' us?" I could hear a ruffle of clothing, and glancing over my shoulder with barely a head-turn confirmed my suspicions. April was making 'shut up' motions at him, while he looked like he had no idea what else to do.

The guy was probably nice, probably had a lot better attitude than the guys she used to hang around or date, but if I haven't had a cup of coffee, you aren't getting me to converse. "Give it up Case," I turn to see the one in the red mask walking in from the barn, a towel around his neck and obviously over-exerted. "She seems like less of a mornin' person than me. And that's sayin' somethin'." His accent was barely-there, but it gave a nice lilt to his words.

"Go to hell Raphael." My voice was chipper and I turned back to add sugar to my coffee as he chuckles.

"Meet ya there she-demon." I turned to give him a fey dirty look as he sat at the table and drummed his fingers along the wood in a rolling rhythm. He has two of them, with a thumb. _File that away to freak over later._ April looked positively panicked, and it was that more than anything that made me snicker into my coffee cup. Nervous laughter from April and her boy-band friend confirmed that April had told him I wasn't happy. Ever. I had the running reputation of being a bitch to anyone that knew me. Only other bitches or guys who could take some shots were okay with me. _Well at least I__'__ll have someone to trade __'__fuck you__' __s with._ The strangeness hit me.

_There__'__s a mutant turtle sitting at the kitchen table, my dishes are done which means they ate what I made and April cleaned up after, or hell one of them... Either way it__'__s fuckin__' __weird. _Boy-band hair looks like he's cut from the same physical cloth as all the other idiots April used to do, date, or hang with- but he has a difference in his eyes. His expression. He's unsure of where he stands with me, but he's obviously going for it when he swats Raphael and quips, "Who are you callin' a demon? You punch people in your sleep when they try to wake ya up!"

"You almost knocked one of my teeth loose the last time I tried." April tentatively edged into the conversation.

There was an expression that flitted across Raphael's face before he settled into his seat a bit more comfortably and threw an arm over the backing, smirking. "Never wake a sleepin' ninja. It ain't my fault you still try to do it by gettin' too close and pokin' me."

"What am I supposed to do?" She leans back, her arms crossed, with an eyebrow raised.

"Leo throws shuriken at me." Raphael mimes a tossing motion sideways that I assume the way you throw a... Shr... Shre... Whatever.

I realize there's no comeback for that and glance around. Raphael's head has dipped and his lips press tightly together, posture tense, eyes narrowed at the tabletop. April's eyes are glossy and her chin is trembling. Boy-band is looking at his coffee like it holds the answers to all the questions of the universe in its murky brown depths. _It__'__s too early for psychoanalysis. _I huff and take a gulp of my hot coffee, the heat is enough to scald a little but I grit my teeth and bear it. _Well, _that_ definitely woke me up._ I loudly clap my hands together after putting down my mug and everyone straightens with a jerk. "Alright, so you explained what happened before. Now-" I clear my throat and continue, "What are you going to do _about_ what happened?" April looks confused, Boy-band and Raphael look smug and slightly excited. "Okay first of all. Name? April probably told me but-" I gesture at Boy-band and he stands up, looking surprised and pleased.

"Casey Jones, at your service ma'am!" His voice was a bit more accented Brooklyn-style than Raphael's, still understandable though thank god. He reaches out a hand to grab one of mine and shake.

"Casey. Okay." I let go and he sits back down. "Now what do you guys plan to do about your family going missing?"

There was an immediate eruption of words that I cannot make heads or tails of because April is arguing with Raph who is trying to talk to Casey who is trying to calm April. I smack the tabletop and they all shut up. "April. Since you're on an end of the table, you talk first. Then go around this way." I wave at Raphael then Casey, they look disgruntled but they shut up. _Thank god._

"I think we should make some kind of plan, we should look for any information before fighting anybody or storming anywhere." She gave both of the males a glare.April_ is the voice of reason? God, I _am_ in the twilight zone._

"Raphael?" I give him a look and he huffs, leaning forward and staring me in the eye as he speaks.

"I think we should go out and do somethin' besides sittin' on our hands, but I'm afraid to leave Mikey alone here. We should all start kickin' purple dragon and foot clan ass until we find somebody with the info we need." _Might be a good idea if all else fails, but it__'__s his first resort which makes me kinda think he__'__s suicidal... Or just homicidal, either way, no._

"Casey?" I lean on the table and give him my full, undivided attention. _Be something not stupid so I can be happy that April has at least one friend who__'__s not crazy. _My eyes dart to the side where Raphael sits.

"Well, Raph and I agree we should hit the pavement, but April is right about it bein' dangerous and us needin' more info. So... Maybe we take some guy who's real important to the purple dragons or the foot clan, real high up, trap him and interrogate him?" _Still stupidly suicidal, but not as _much_, thank god._

"Raphael, you said- Mikey? Where is he now?" _Shouldn__'__t he be in here?_

"Mikey's takin' it... hard." Raph fiddles with the table top, picking at some peeling lacquer with his fingernail and looking uncomfortable. _Ah, he__'__s crying a lot. Looks like Raph doesn__'__t know what to do with him._

"Well, I think he would want to be included in this, wouldn't he? It's his family too." I watch as Raph bites his lip and turns his head, looking to Casey and then April, _He__'__s asking permission? Or... Advice? April gives advice now. Mindfuck._

"Maybe tell him we're making plans to save them, and it'll give him something to focus on." April shrugs and looks at a loss as much as the other two. _April dealt with crying people a lot, she should know how to handle it. Did she just forget?_

Raph sighs. "Fine. I'll get 'im."

We wait as Raph leaves the room, heading for the front room and leaning over the couch, muttering something. The smaller one pops up above the back, his eyes wide. "We're going to get them!?" Was he surprised? April said they were ninjas, and they were being chased by bad men, didn't they do this before? "But-" His bright blue eyes watered and his chin wobbled, "We don't have Leo... Or even Donnie!" He puts his face in his hands and sniffles as Raph sighs and pats him on the head. "I miss Master Splinter." His voice whined in his throat and he rubbed furiously at his eyes before getting up and walking into the kitchen with Raph. I look to my left: _April looks heartbroken, _To my right: _Casey looks like he__'__s at a loss._ Raph just seems to be the rock in this situation, something for his brother to lean against and take strength from. But his eyes, _He looks like he__'__s in a lot of pain._

"Okay." I say once everyone is around the table. I sit after pulling the stool over to the table, Mikey was sitting _on_ the table and everyone else had chairs... _Unfair._ But! Muttering to myself won't change anything. "Mikey, right?" He nods sadly and rubs his eyes, having to sit with his right leg under his left that dangles over the edge just to be able to face me. "What do you think would be a good idea? What do you want to do?"

He blinks. "Nobody usually asks me."

Everyone grimaces at my deadpan expression. "Okay... But I'm asking you _now_, okay?"

"I don't know. Leo and Don usually do the planning stuff." He kicks his leg and it tapped Raph in the side from the way he flinched, _why is he almost smiling? Isn__'__t that annoying?_ His leg keeps swinging and Raph's half-smile becomes more of a half-smirk and he closes his eyes.

"Well, what's usually your job?" _Please give me something, I__'__m at a loss here. These guys are completely out of their element without this __'__Leo__' __guy, or this __'__Don__' __person._

"Uhhh... I'm bait when we set traps, and I fight in a really unconventional way." He shrugs.

"Okay. Raphael, what's usually _your_ job?" _Let__'__s see what we__'__re working with._

"I'm the bruiser." He shrugs, "Strongest and best fighter-" He almost seems like he's just stating facts, until Mikey chimes in.

"Not always." His foot is still kicking and bumping Raph in the side. "Leo still beats you sometimes."

"Yeah, _sometimes_." Raph rolls his eyes and closes them again, smiling more than before.

"Okay, so you're the strong one, with the higher level of fighting ability. That's good." I frown to myself. _Unpredictable and strong is fine but hell... We have no information... _I glance up at April. "What did you and Casey do? I mean, he seems the type to like action-" I give him a glance and he grins as I turn back to April. "So what did you two do?"

"Casey and I train with them a lot. I'm almost a full-fledged Ninja now-" I cut her off.

"You're a ninja." My tone and expression are both deadpan.

"Sort of." She shrugs, smiling sheepishly. "And Casey isn't really a ninja, but he uses their exercises to improve strength, flexibility, speed, you know... But he basically just fights with his sport equipment. He's good at it-" She gives him an apologetic look, "But there's a lot of noise and not a lot of strategy to what Casey does."

"And besides the ninja training, how do you help?" I lead her on with a hand gesture. _Something, anything?_

"Well... A lot of the time when we're planning, I help Leo figure out the timing and get the blueprints from Don so I can mark all the escape routes in and out of whatever facility they're going into." _Which is basically useless until we actually find out where anyone is._

I walked around the table and paced in the hallway, back and forth, until I heard them murmuring to each other in low voices. "Don usually does all the diggin' for information, we don't even know how he does it." _Raph sounds annoyed._

"Well, we'll figure it out. We're reasonably intelligent, we can-" _April isn__'__t making it better, I__'__m sure._

"_You__'__re_ reasonably intelligent, April. I'm just the guy with the hockey sticks." _Aaaand they__'__re getting discouraged._

_What can I do for them? How can I help them? Ninja__'__s, gangs, mutants... Ugh, I wish I was an only child._ There was a small vindictive thrill and then a guilty tug at my conscience. I huff and turn around to watch them. They're completely at a loss, but still willing to argue. Which means they're all tense and if I don't do something about all of their... Tenseness, they'd probably end up in a dog-pile on the floor... The guys anyway, April'd probably just sit there screeching at them, or rolling her eyes... I don't really know her that well anymore so I'm not sure exactly what she'd do. There's hand slapping and I run my fingers through my hair before walking over to the table again. "Everybody shut up." Silence comes over the room like a thunderclap. "There are a whole gang's worth of people possibly in on this, as well as a bunch of American and Japanese ninja's right? Right!" I answer myself before they can do more than open their mouths. "So did any of you think that maybe they might be bragging about this somewhere on the internet?" Their eyes are on me, blinking and sort of confused by the looks of it. "Message boards, chat rooms, something? A lot of them you don't even need to have a registration to view and search through?" April seems to think of something, but stays silent. "What is it April?"

"Um. Don used to use a computer for everything, so that might have been one of the things he used to do for information. But it would take hours, or maybe even days to find all the possible-"

"Were you planning on doing something else?" They all suddenly seemed to realize there was something they could _do_ instead of just standing around doing nothing and being useless and hopeless.

"We need computers, I still have some savings, I'll go buy us a few laptops." April jumped up, Casey followed after her.

"I don't know how to use a computer." Raph looked at a loss.

"I do, bro. We can work together." Mikey put a fist out for Raph to bump: Raph smirked, Mikey grinned brightly and everybody had a job to do that could help the cause. _The cause being a rescue, that I have no idea how they__'__re all gonna pull off._ I threw my hands up and gave in to the tide of euphoria.

"I have a computer in my room, it's a desktop but I have wireless internet so, if you wanna-" They took off up the stairs before I could finish and I shook my head, following them up.

I, of course, called April, after they dialed her number for me and told her not to buy laptops, and instead go the library. I could forgive her excitement and sort-of stupidity because she was desperate to do something, but I could not allow her to spend mass amounts of cash for no reason. _"So okay, we__'__re here- what do we all search for?__" _My house phone is on speakerphone so we can all hear April. Raph and Mikey look at each other in complete confusion.

"Um... Anything that says foot clan or purple dragons?" Mikey scratches his head and looks uncomfortable.

"Even you gotta know they're not gonna be that obvious." Raph tapped his fingertips on his upper arm, crossed arms seemed to be his default position. "Maybe somethin' about Hun, we could search for 'the boss' or 'The big guy' or even just 'turtles'." _I like that better, but more search terms are probably a good idea._

"Search Turtle, The Turtles, Boss, The names of all the turtles and their father individually, The Rat." I think about it for a moment as they all write them down, I can even hear April keying it into her phone's note taking app. "Um. Something about the Sewers too, might be good. Sewer, Sewer Plan or possibly Sting, or Ambush." I lean back on my hands, the table behind me creaking with my weight settling into it.

"_Okay, so we__'__ve got the search terms, what sites?__" _Casey is apparently crowding April cause I hear a muffled shove and:

"_Casey I__'__ll talk to them, get on the computer._"

"_I don__'__t know what to do!_"

There's a shuffle and a rejiggering of positions and now Casey has the phone and April's doing the computer thang. _"Sites?__"_

"Well, there are message boards all over the internet, just search Gurgle with the terms until you find something with a thread that has something that looks like what we need. There may be multiple posts you'll have to search for. On my computer the search is control F to find. Just type in the terms again and it'll go straight to where you need on the page."

"_Oh, and there are chats on the sites with the message boards__" _April's voice is almost clear, so Casey must be holding the phone up between them.

"Right. Everybody take a different site, when you find one, call us with the name and we'll skip over it, we don't all want to search the same site unless we get desperate."

My job soon became the drink and food person. April called with updates and site names, and when the two with me found something they called to update her instead. Everyone had four or five different sites to search, and I had no computer so I basically just gravitated downstairs. I realized it'd been hours since we'd eaten anything, and I hadn't eaten anything _at all _this morning. I popped open the microwave out of habit to see if I'd left anything in there- only to find a plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes. _They saved some for me. _I pull out the fork and start it up, opening the fridge and taking stock of what I've got. When I'm nervous or upset, I cook. Once when I was first going through my period, mom taught me to make no-bake cookies and brownies and I filled the entire kitchen with them. We had to sell most of them and some of them we just gave away to get rid of. But hey, I paid for the materials, at least. I realize my lips are pulling up in nostalgic bliss and replace the little grin with a scowl. _There are people around now. Can__'__t show that kind of weakness._ I didn't know about these new people but April and I were sisters and we made fun of each other for _everything_ when we were younger.

I pull out some: veggies, bread, ham and cheese. I lay out the bread, put a slice of cheese on one side of each 'sandwich' on the cooking tray. Then I put the tray in the oven and turn it on. About ten minutes later, I've got a tray of toasted bread, melted cheese, and I lay lettuce, tomato, and ham on all of them. I've now got four sandwiches and repeat the process until I have twelve. When April got home she could have some. _Providing she and Casey don__'__t go to a drive-through or something._ I set my plate of pancakes on the table, arrange the sandwiches on plates and carry them upstairs. Mikey and Raph are arguing over some random blog post and both reach for a sandwich after noticing me set down the plates. "It's nothin' Mikey, I'm tellin' ya."

"But it says purple and green!" Mikey is putting his foot down apparently.

"That don't mean anythin' and besides, we can't get in it, we ain't members of the site. I dunno how to do this crap." Raph seems more frustrated and irritated than anything else.

I took a moment and leaned in between them to create a bogus screen name and then a fake email account. Suddenly the thread was open and we were joining. "_Oh my god._" I dropped back as a video popped up. It wasn't playing yet, but there was definitely a mutant turtle on the screen. Mikey frantically clicked play and I tapped the space bar to pause. "Mikey, I don't think-" If this was a 'snuff' kind of thing-

"Play it!" Raph hit the space bar and gave me a look like I was crazy. He didn't see?

**The footage is shaky, obviously a camera in someone****'****s hand as they walk closer to the turtle who****'****s arms and legs are tied in four directions with chains. His head lifts at the new light and he looks afraid, his eyes shining and wobbling in the video screen. He sees the video camera and drops his head, clenching his hands and yanking for a moment before subsiding again. ****"****Ain****'****t no weak spots in them chains. We learned over the years. It****'****s too bad none of ya stupid kids had the balls to kill any of us, eh?****" **_Kids? _**"So, this post. We****'****re havin****' ****a nice little competition.****" ****A hand lashes out to smack the turtle soundly across the cheek. The loud Thwak! isn****'****t accompanied by any cry or whimper. **_Tough little bastards aren__'__t they? _**"We****'****re gonna see who****'****s tough enough to go up against THIS little annoyance- and put him down.****" **There's a shocked whimper from Mikey and Raph grasps his shoulder, watching the screen attentively with eyes narrowed. **"Anybody who gets past the first few rounds, will be admitted into the final round of the competition, up to ten. Whoever gets knocked out, pinned, or dead-****" ****There****'****s a smattering of greasy laughter, ****"****-gets kicked from the contest. The last round, is ten one on one matches against this little freak-****" ****He punches him across the face this time, a small grunt the only accompanying noise. ****"****- who****'****ll be unarmed, and weak. You beat him, you can kill him. You can****'****t, we move on to the next. If nobody else is able to do the job, the boss****'****ll step in.****" ****Cheers erupt. ****"****The boss likes this idea, says he can****'****t wait. See all participants there, at the place, date, and time in the text below.****"**

The video is over and they're both staring awestruck at the screen. I scroll down to copy and paste the details on my note taking software. I close out the internet and pick up the phone, dialing April. _"What__'__s-__"_

"_Did you find anything!?__" _Casey still had the phone, but April is frantic.

"We found one of them." There's a silence.

"_Which one is it?__" _Casey's tentative voice breaks the tension.

"It was Donnie." Mikey turns to grab the phone and speak into the speaker. "We know where he's gonna be and when, and... They're gonna compete to see who gets to- gets to..." Mikey grips the phone and Raph takes it out of his grip.

"It's some kinda sick contest to see who gets to kill Don." Mikey lets a small whimper escape, while Raph growls into the phone. "We need ta get there before they do it. We know the address, we should all go." He stands and I realize he's _serious _about that.

My hands go up to stop him before I think about it and he pauses. We're nose to nose, he's glaring at me so hard I'm afraid I might burst into flames, and my brain suddenly starts working again. I take a large step back while still keeping my hands on his-... Chest? Front plate? What?

"Raph, we need a plan first." I carefully pull back my hands and his eyes lost their fire for a moment, his lips pressing hard together, his eyes widening. Then the anger was back, worse than before.

"Get outta my way."

"Fuck, no!" I put my hands back up, but this time I just raised them in defense. His eyes went wide again but it just translated into more anger.

"Why not!?" He loomed over me, booming, like I was supposed to be scared shitless or something.

"Because all of you guys running in without thinking, getting yourselves killed? Will mean HE dies too!" I thrust my finger over Raph's shoulder and he looks back at the computer. "Mikey will die, and if not, at least be injured badly. April will get hurt, Casey will get hurt, _you__'__ll_ get hurt, and Donnie will have _no one_ to rescue him! Or Leo or your father!"

He's stuck in that spot, staring intently at the computer screen, not moving. His hands are in fists, he'd look like a statue if he wasn't shaking. I had no idea what I was even doing. I don't know this guy, I have no idea if he actually _could_ just run in and save the day or not-

I just can't stand dangerous stupidity.

When someone nearby talks about jumping off a cliff and into a lake, I lectured them on the fact that there were probably pointy rocks at the bottom, and if not, it could at least be not as deep as it seemed- See my point? I _have_ to act, if someone is going to do something stupid. Ever since I started trapping April in her room, at school in her locker, just to keep her from killing herself in stupid ways.

Raph brushes past me with a shove, and I have to catch myself on my left arm. My wrist jolts, I roll to my forearm, my elbow erupting in a spike of pain- falling on my back, rolling to my other side, pushing myself up and dashing to my feet and down the stairs, I chase him. _Like shoving has ever really put me out of the fuckin__' __chase!?_ I'm not about to let him get to that bike in the barn. Casey had off-loaded it before they left, _Just In Case._ I'm on an adrenaline high of sorts, I guess, cause I shoot down the stairs like a rabbit running from a rabid dog, and burst out into the garage with the bang of door against wall. The motorcycle hasn't moved, Raphael is nowhere to be seen and I spot the window on the opposite side of the barn, open. _What, he__'__s gonna walk to the city?_ I step over to the window and glance out into the trees surrounding the house. I can see a flash of red darting through the trees soon disappearing in the direction of the back of the house. _Ah._ He was running it off. _If he__'__d just said something I wouldn__'__t have chased him like a bat outta hell- and Fuck, my arm!_ I gasp in pain and go down on my knees, realizing pretty late that I probably sprained my wrist.

April and Casey came home about ten minutes later, to me cursing Raph out at the top of my lungs and screeching when Mikey would grip my wrist too hard as he applied some topical medicine and wrapped it in bandages. "Whoa, what happened?" Casey's eyes widened as he stepped into the kitchen.

"May, are you okay?" April stepped quickly to my side and grabbed my shoulder. I hiss, my whole arm moving, my elbow burning with the sudden jerk.

"I'm fine-stop touching me!" She yanked her hand back and frowned at me.

"What happened?" Casey walked up beside April and asked again, looking irritated. _So what, he has to repeat himself, my ARM is going to have to be put in a sling!_

"Raph." The one-word answer from a not at all perturbed Mikey seemed to relax them, even when April looked annoyed and asked:

"What did he do, _exactly?_" She glanced sideways toward the barn/garage and narrowed her eyes.

"He freaked cause May said we couldn't go after Don until we had a plan." Mikey was so simple in his answer, so calm, even grinning as he said it. "Then he ran past her, sorta pushed her out of the way cause she was tryin' to block him. She fell over, this happened." He gestures at my arm. "Then she bounced back to her feet and ran after him like she was gonna peel him out of his shell."

"Where is he!?" Casey darted toward the barn, no doubt to look for the bike as I had before.

"He's running around the forest out back," I shout after him.

"I can't believe he'd _hurt_ you, even if he _was_-" April's eyebrows pulled down, I interrupted.

"In Bitch Mode?" I yelp when Mikey pushes my arm over my chest so he can sling it.


End file.
